Imagine a world in which your favorite soccer team went three years without a meaningful game. Now ask yourself whether that would defeat the purpose.

For so many soccer fans the week in, week out celebration, agony, restraint and reward of it all defines their devotion. Even for those who focus on a national team, weekend performances at club level offer a series of gains and losses. More than in any other sport, soccer’s followers define fandom by the unrelenting nature of their commitment – the end-to-end engagement across the breadth of the calendar, forcing the game to become a lifestyle as much as a pastime.

That’s where the US women’s game has a problem. For the ardent, often feverish fans of the national team, a relative eternity passes between meaningful games. The close of each Summer Olympics commences a near-three-year drought until the next World Cup.

In Concacaf, there is no marquee, mid-cycle competition that rivals the men’s Gold Cup. There is no multi-year qualification process leading into each World Cup. After the final whistle blows at an Olympic Games, the USA do not play another competitive game until the next World Cup qualifying tournament, which begins two and a half years later.

US Soccer tries to throw some important games in that void. Late winter’s annual Algarve Cup in Portugal draws the best teams in the world, but with each team forced to play four games over an eight-day span, the competition cannot always feature each team at its best.

The USA also try to schedule the few teams who are on their level. Last year they played, and drew with, No2-ranked Germany. But given that home dates pay the bills, a team unbeaten in its last 42 games (outscoring opponents 146-29) is left with a Harlem Globetrotters-esque national tour against whomever can be convinced to fly in.

In women’s soccer, that means a lot of bad games. There just aren’t enough team close enough to the Americans to guarantee 12 or more competitive games per year. While the likes of Germany and Japan can beat the USA and Sweden, France and Canada (among others) can challenge them, US Soccer can’t always convince one of the team’s few peers to come over. In order to maintain a full schedule, the federation has to book games against vastly inferior competition.

Thursday was the latest example. The USA hosted No21-ranked Russia in Atlanta. It was the second match of a typical two-game swing for their opponents, with the Russians having endured an embarrassing 7-0 defeat five days earlier in Boca Raton, Florida. Thought they managed to only concede an own goal over the second game’s first 45 minutes, the Russians conceded seven times in the second half of a merciless 8-0 drubbing at the Georgia Dome.

The matches were more lopsided than most of the soccer Globetrotters’ friendlies, but the tone was the same. Russia sat deep and tried to limit the damage the high-powered Americans could inflict, even though the USA did not play a full-strength starting XI (Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath were both unavailable). In Florida, only Heather O’Reilly, Carli Lloyd, and Christen Press played near their potential, while a second game played with the intensity of a wine tasting saw the USA go 52 minutes before scoring on their own.

Come Thursday’s final whistle, the U.S. had outscored Russia 15-0 while outshooting them 65-6 over two legs – a lack of competition that may do more harm than good in preparation for the next World Cup.

With the depth at the U.S.’s disposal, the deck was stacked against the Russians. Still, every time a Russia, Australia, Mexico, or South Korea comes to the States, this kind of result is always a possibility. Only bad days (Oct. 30’s 1-1 vs. New Zealand) or down performances (last February’s 3-1 vs. Scotland) keep these friendlies from being cringe-inducing blowouts.

The big losers in all this are the fans. While a rabid group of unrelenting devotees means the team will draw in almost any city in America, the monotony of endless, one-sided performances makes for a dull product – a show where only the band’s roadies can appreciate the nuance. Sometimes the team will still draw a crowd, as it did when Toyota Stadium sold out in Frisco, Tex. for Jan. 31’s game against Canada. Other times, when a competitive game is less likely, the crowd dwindles. Only 8,857 made it out to Florida Atlantic University Stadium in Boca Raton.

And who can blame them? While the lead up to games like Saturday’s undoubtedly provides head coach Tom Sermanni with valuable information, the actual friendlies don’t. Eight-goal wins where your team is never tested – where the potential for a useless injury provides more suspense than the competition itself – does nothing for the team. For those who could potentially drive out to see it, better to stay home and spend two hours crafting your best 140-character one-liner than watch Harlem rout the Washington Generals.

The real solutions rests beyond the federation – not that US Soccer can’t influence the process. With the European Championships growing, giving some of the US’s strongest competitors three major tournaments (and one long qualifying process) per cycle, the need for a real Gold Cup grows.

There are, however, two tournaments that already function as Gold Cups: the qualifiers for the World Cup and the Olympics. Staged in the winters before those major events, Concacaf’s tournaments feature group stages, knockout rounds and (usually) a USA vs Canada final. They are exactly what a summer Gold Cup would be, though their timing only compounds the problem.

Too short and too close to the majors they support, the qualifying tournaments mean the USA’s important games are crammed into one part of the cycle. Replace the pre-World Cup tournament with a true qualifying process and stage Gold Cups in off years, and Concacaf’s teams begin playing more meaningful games across a larger portion of the cycle.

When it comes to Germany, USA fans might turn the ‘Can we play you every week’ chant into a positive. Photograph: Jens Meyer/AP

But how many teams can afford to do that? Odds are, some teams would skip tournaments. Maybe they stop playing entirely unless Fifa and Concacaf can pitch in. It’s easy to spot a problem and say “the USA need more competitive games”, but how do you convince Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala to play along? It’s in their best interests long-term, but that rationale unfortunately doesn’t compel solutions in the women’s game.

Thus we have matches like this week’s. Russia may have gained some needed experience, and Tom Sermanni undoubted garnered some valuable information from his camp, but the matches felt as hollow as the other friendlies occupying this three-year drought. When the USA plays to its potential, the games quickly become meaningless.